


All Along the Watchtower, the Princes Kept Their View

by whoistorule



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 21:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoistorule/pseuds/whoistorule
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the eve of his death, Arthur looks back at all that brought him here, to the Tower of Joy.</p>
<p>Written for the <a href="http://got-exchange.livejournal.com/84834.html#cutid1">got_exchange</a> on livejournal.</p>
<p>(Rated T for blood/violence/implied sexual content.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Along the Watchtower, the Princes Kept Their View

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bronson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bronson/gifts).



When Arthur was a child, all golden hair ruffling against his mother's fingertips, eyes still bright with hope, he loved visiting the sept.  The faces of his gods stared down at him, the Crone wrinkled and wise, the Smith weathered and sunbent, the Mother and Father looking at him with smiling, proud eyes; the Maiden his sisters already embodied, and the Warrior he would be.  They were his future in glinting marble, pristine and painted bright. Only the Stranger stood alone.  The hooded figure frightened him, chased him behind his mother's ample skirts, and she would laugh and tell him the day he could look the Stranger in the eye was the day he'd walk the path of manhood the first time, for to look into the eyes of the Stranger was to know death, and it was only fools that did not fear its hood.  
  
The fear Arthur knew that day brimmed only twice more in his famed life.  The first was the day he saw his death stalk towards him in the teenaged form of Jon Arryn's ward, Ned Stark, and the last was the final morning he awoke to Lyanna Stark's screaming in the Tower of Joy.  
  
\--  
  
No matter where he went, Dawn gleaming at his side, the people knew him for the young war hero he was.  In fact, if it weren't for the fabled, delicate beauty of Rhaegar Targaryen, the dragon cool as ice, Arthur Dayne had no doubt he might be hailed as a prince himself.  Thankfully, he heard nothing of the sort, at least not after he donned his immaculate white cloak to join the ranks of the fabled Kingsguard.  Who else would protect Rhaegar the way he would?  His friend was strong, yes, but it was a brittle strength.  His outward shell was cool, but his insides were always burning.  Quiet though Rhaegar was, only fools couldn't see his fury simmering below the surface.  Still, Arthur worried.  If struck, would he shatter?  
  
It was that worry that wed Arthur to his white cloak, but it was too soon forgotten in the haze of a long summer.  It had been years since Dorne had seen more than light late winter drifts, and the Southron court had long forgotten the fear that came with winter's bite.  
  
There were three of them at first: Arthur and Rhaegar of course, the King to be and his chief Knight; their third was another southern lord, Jon Connington, of Griffin's Roost. He idolized Rhaegar, any fool could see that, but Arthur didn't begrudge him his fantasies; what a man saw behind his eyelids at night was his business alone.  Should dreaming make sinners of saints, Arthur would have quite a few less esteemed brothers.  
Together they were the golden trio; even their hair and armor bespoke their firegiven nobility, pale and regal and burning bright.  Rhaegar glimmered silver at his roots and burned red at his chest, speckled with rubies.  He was still, even in his rage.  When he struck it was like lightning, bright and hot and viciously quick.  Lord Connington was less measured in his movements.  The younger knight was erratic in his passions, but strong as any, and his might was something to be seen, especially when Rhaegar was there.  It was for Rhaegar that he fought the fiercest; for Rhaegar that he would have died, given half the chance.  
  
None of them were untested in the lists, nor in battle, not after their trials against the Smiling Knight and the Kingswood Brotherhood.  That was when three became four. Arthur saw the prowess of Jaime Lannister against the Smiling Knight, and the promise of his sword arm.  
  
The Smiling Knight was the finest foe Ser Arthur Dayne faced until the day of his own death, and it took two bouts to bring him down, but he did, burying his greatsword Dawn far into the man’s chest.  Other’s called him a monster, but in those days there was honor still.  In those days the words of a Knight of the Kingsguard meant something.  
Arthur knighted Jaime that day, and hoped he would never face him in battle, for even though all knew Arthur Dayne as the greatest knight in Westeros, Arthur knew no song went on without end, and his, too would one day have its final verses sung.  
  
\--  
  
But what a song it was while it lasted.  In the high towers of Starfall, on the shores of the Torentine River, his sisters sang it still.  When the Dornish winds quieted and the mountains were still, Arthur could almost hear them.  Ashara would be mourning, though he could not say for whom, but she was given to mourning.  Was it for Rhaegar?  He doubted that.  And it could not be for Barristan Selmy; though she flirted with him with her cruel-kind smile, it was not for him her heart beat fast.  Arthur wondered if it was for his own death his sister mourned, or for Ned Stark’s, for only one of them would survive the day, that much he knew.  
  
Even as he waited for his death to come on Winter’s frozen hooves, he would hum a few bars of Rhaegar’s mournful tunes, the ones he would play in the ruins of Summerhall beneath the scattered stars.  The Tower of Joy rose high in the red heat of the Dornish Mountains, and Arthur could see the dust of the Northern horses rearing up in the horizon hours before they arrived.  
  
They could flee, of course, but they were men of the Kingsguard, sworn still to Rhaegar Targaryen.  How could they disobey his last requests?  To the Tower of Joy he’d sent them, and in the Tower of Joy they would stay.  
  
Squinting, Ser Arthur Dayne let the first rays of the morning’s light burn his pale eyes until he shut them tight and his vision filled with memories of gold of a different kind.  
  
\--  
  
Ghosts dined in Harrenhal at night; gorged themselves on the screams of dreamers, drank the sorrows of the dead, but for Arthur it was never a place of horror.  No, the Tourney at Harrenhal was the calm before the storm; it was the last time they were all truly happy.  There, before the winter blue roses bloomed at Lyanna Stark’s pale fingertips, Arthur had faith still that born in the ashes of Summerhall, Rhaegar Targaryen still might be the King they all knew he could be.  
  
There, in the shadows of that monstrous stone graveyard, there was light and joy and laughter. For ten days they would fight, until one rose victorious.  Arthur was no stranger to the lists, and he knew he had a better chance than most to choose his own Queen of Love and Beauty, but he knew not whom he would pick.  
  
Perhaps it would be his sister.  That first night, Ashara danced with all who cast their smiles upon her, from Barristan Selmy, whose blue eyes gave away his traitorous heart, the one that loved his sister nearly as much as his own white cloak, to Oberyn Martell, whose viper’s fangs could not sink his tempestuous sister’s high spirits, to Jon Connington, whose boisterous steps were clumsied by Rhaegar’s gaze.  There, by Rhaegar’s side, Arthur saw all.  
  
Though summer fought with all her might, blazing bright and hot as she could, there was no staving off Winter’s cruel frosts.  When Eddard Stark took his sister’s hand, Arthur felt his blood run cold.  There was something about the quiet northerner, honorable though he was, that tinged the air with the coppery stench of death.  
  
Though Arthur watched Ashara intently, he could see Rhaegar’s gaze flew further, to the Stark’s raucous table, where the Northern warriors, those who scorned the title of Ser, who fought long dead demons and bedtime stories rather than tourneys and melees, sat drinking.  Even they had come south for the greatest tourney the land had ever seen.  
But it was not on the North’s warriors that Rhaegar’s eyes found purchase, but her daughter, boisterous as the rest.  After Rhaegar sang, she poured wine on her young brothers head, and though she was slight of build, she held her own as much as any northerner, downing glasses upon glasses of watered wine, her smile wild as the North itself.  
  
Like a shard of ice, the Northern girl buried herself into the heart of the dragon prince.  “Did you know she beat off three squires with a sword?” Rhaegar had asked the next morning, as his eyes flicked to her tent.  “I haven’t seen the Stark girl anywhere today,” he’d mused as they watched the Knight of the Laughing Tree take down those selfsame squires.  
  
Between Lyanna Stark and the Laughing Tree, Rhaegar was consumed, but Arthur came to worry too late for them both.  He was used to Rhaegar’s dark moods, to his sudden desires.  They’d come upon him swiftly, an obsession with Wildling folk songs perhaps, to be adapted from lute to harp, or else an immediate need to learn the truth behind dragonglass, only to be abandoned weeks later upon the discovery of his latest fascination.  Arthur assumed that Lyanna Stark was much of the same, a temporary compulsion, to be concluded when the sun set on Harrenhal on the final night.  
  
Had he known what would come of it, Arthur might have had the will to stay ahorse on that fateful day.  He fought with all the strength he had, but when desperation set, more strength could be found.  With battle madness came battle strength, the kind that tourneys couldn’t replicate.  And so he fell, Dawn burning at his side.  Had he only knocked his Prince off instead, perhaps the fates would have been kinder to them all.  
Instead Rhaegar’s momentary madness doomed them all, and yet Arthur could not blame him.  When he played the Crown of Love and Beauty on Lyanna Stark’s lap, Arthur knew it must be for some great purpose.  Rhaegar was not one to act without it. For all the darkness there was in him, he had more vision than most.  He alone could see the stars above the smoke.  When Summerhall burned, it brought the last dragon to life, and there, in Harrenhal, his flames licked them all.  
  
\--  
  
When Arthur remembered Harrenhal, it was not the blue of those winter roses he saw, but rather the bright moments.  It was when Jaime Lannister joined their ranks, the traitor-to-be’s cloak still clean and white.  As the Northern wind blew southward, Arthur wondered if the young lion would be amongst them.  Somehow he knew not.  Should Jaime Lannister face him in battle that day, it would be younger man’s death.  The day had not yet come when Arthur Dayne could be bested by a mere boy, not with so much at stake.  
  
Regret was a bitter drink, but Arthur would not sweeten its taste with “I did not knows,” and “how should Is,” and “if only I could go backs.”  There was no going back, no unknighting of Jaime Lannister, no removing of his white cloak, though it was soiled now with dishonor the color of king’s blood.  
  
Had war not come to Westeros, had Lyanna Stark married Robert Baratheon, brutish though he may be, perhaps Jaime Lannister would have remained true, but then they would not have known what kind of man he was.  It was a man of convenience who broke his vows, a base man, one who did not know that when a man stood naked before the Stranger’s judgment, all he had was his word and how well it was kept.  
  
Jaime Lannister was not a man ready to face his own death.  He knew not the fear or the calm that Arthur felt as the shadows grew shorter on the horizon, as the dust cloud grew closer to the Tower, as Lyanna’s whimpers echoed from the cold depths.  He wondered, as the pangs of childbirth fell upon her even now as her brother approached, if it was regret she swallowed this morn, or if hers was a sweeter drink.  
  
And Rhaegar, as he drowned in the shallows of the Trident, what was it that he tasted between his bloodied lips?  Perhaps it was nothing more than copper and ash.  
  
\--  
  
It was not until weeks later that Rhaegar shed light on what passed during that now infamous tourney.  After they’d departed from Harrenhal, Elia had gone quiet, quieter than usual, and Rhaegar had taken to one of his darker moods, fretting and moving frequently from castle to castle, Arthur obediently at his side.  Jon Connington had come along as well, for where his prince went he was never far behind, and Arthur’s newest brother, Jaime Lannister, was at Connington’s heels.  
  
From King’s Landing to Dragonstone, Rhaegar spent his nights brooding in the Windwyrm, his eyes to the sky, his harp abandoned at his feet.  Whatever it was that Rhaegar saw in those dark skies, Arthur couldn’t say, only that they left him with fits of shaking terrors.  “The dragon must have three heads,” Arthur heard him murmuring as he kept guard by Rhaegar’s chamber door, “There’s no other way around it, the dragon must have three heads.”  
  
From Dragonstone back to King’s Landing, where Rhaegar spent his days on Visenya’s hill and Rhaenys’s both, only to return to Aegon’s High Hill, to his books, and to his harp.  “The songs and stories all say the same things,” he’d whispered, head bent, “ _The dragon must have three heads._ ”  
  
Arthur was certain, then, that they would be off to Dorne, to Elia Martell, to his children and his family, but they rode instead for Summerhall.  Connington was glad to be separated from Elia Martell, of that Arthur was certain.  The rougher lord laughed at even the tiniest of Rhaegar’s jests, keeping pace with him as Arthur rode behind with his brother.  
  
“Is it always like this?” Jaime asked as the ruins of Summerhall grew tall and dark on the horizon.  
  
At that, Arthur laughed.  “No, I dare say it isn’t.  This is just one of Rhaegar’s moods.  It will pass, I’m sure, and you’ll return to King’s Landing.”  
  
“I don’t mind it,” Jaime said, his golden armor glinting in the sunlight.  It wasn’t proper; for a Knight of the Kingsguard to wear ought but their customary whites was a serious breach of tradition, but the day was warm and summer’s light bright and hot, and Arthur could not deny his companion looked like something out of a legend, his lion’s head helmet roaring around his ears.  “It’s more exciting than guarding the King’s chambers, at least.”  
  
“That’s because you haven’t been a part of the Kingsguard long enough.”  
  
“What do you mean by that?”  
  
“You’ll see.”  
  
Jaime quieted at that, only to pick up again a few moments later.  “Why are we going to Summerhall?  I heard it was a ruin.”  
  
“It is.  Prince Rhaegar likes to play his harp there at times.  He was born on the eve of its destruction; he’s always felt a sort of connection to the place.”  
  
“I see.”  Just a glance at the younger man’s face told Arthur that Jaime Lannister did not see at all, but he let it go.  With time, with maturity, Jaime would understand.  “Do you think he’ll go west at all?  To the Rock perhaps?”  
  
“I doubt it.  There’s nothing West that interests our lord.”  _What he wants is North._   “Nor should there be anything there that interests you.  Your interests belong to the King now, not your Lord Father.”  Arthur paused, meeting Jaime’s eyes. “Why do you ask?”  
  
Jaime’s face went dark at Arthur’s question.  “No reason,” he said, but he pulled ahead, beyond Prince Rhaegar and Jon Connington, galloping off into the distance.  Jon Connington and Rhaegar slowed to meet Arthur’s pace, flanking him on either side.  
  
“What bit him?” Jon asked, and Arthur shook his head.  
  
“I believe he’s unused to not having his wants met.  He wanted to know if we would travel to Casterly Rock.”  
  
Rhaegar laughed at that, and Arthur felt a smile tug at his own lips.  It was good to hear his friend’s laughter again.  “What, is he still trying his sister’s suit?  I would think two children by Elia would be enough to prove I will not marry the Lannister girl.”  
  
Jon’s smile bent at the mention of Elia, but Arthur ignored him, choosing Rhaegar’s jests over Jon’s petty jealousies.  “Perhaps it is his brother’s suit he wishes to try.  Your daughter, his imp, they could make a fitting match.”  
  
But at that, Rhaegar grew serious.  “Rhaenys has a higher calling.  All of my children do.  But let us not dwell on that in the light of day.  Don’t worry, my friends.  Tonight, the stars will reveal all.”  
  
And so they did.  The day waned as they reached the ashy ruins of Summerhall and made their camp amongst it’s charred remains.  When the moon dawned on the horizon, Rhaegar took out his harp and began to play for them, a lay so sad even Jaime Lannister had tears brimming in his green eyes.  It was a tale of love hard won and the wreckage it left in its stead, of the destruction true love could bring, and of how the gods could do naught to stop it.  As he played, the moon shone on the graves of Summerhall, and Arthur could see the shadows twisting in their ghostly dances, mocking the living, doomed as they were to play out their fates.  
  
In the quiet that followed, the only sounds were their shallow breaths as the last of Rhaegar’s notes bounced amongst the stones.  It wasn’t until Rhaegar broke the silence that Arthur realized he was barely breathing, so moved was he by the song.  
  
“You must be wondering why I’ve brought you here.  In fact you must be wondering quite a lot of things.”  Rhaegar whispered, but in the silence of the ruins, he needed no more sound than that.  “The whole kingdom is wondering I’m sure, but they won’t know.  Can’t know what I will tell only you.”  
  
Arthur nodded, and drew his greatsword Dawn, laying it at his prince’s feet.  “I will tell no one, my friend.  My lips, as well as my sword, belong only to you.  Your confidence is mine to keep.”  
  
“I as well,” said Connington, and he, too drew his sword.  
  
“And me!” Lannister was last, his sword as gold as his armor, and Rhaegar nodded, the sight of the swords bringing a faint smile to his lips.  
  
“Lyanna Stark was the Knight of the Laughing tree.  It was not only her shield I came across in that tree, but her as well, placing it there.  I suspected, of course, but she confirmed it.  That crown was hers, by rights it was.  She would have defeated me on the horse. I dare say she might have defeated even you, Arthur.”  
  
Arthur doubted that greatly, but he would not interrupt Rhaegar, not now.  
  
“She’s to marry that Baratheon brute, Robert, but she doesn’t wish to.  He’s no honor to him.  He’s a bastard child already, one in the Vale of Arryn.  She doesn’t love him, nay, she doesn’t even like him, and yet the Starks will wed their houses, sell her to him like chattel.”  
  
 _And what choice did Elia of Dorne have when she wed you?_  Arthur wished to ask, but again he remained silent as Jon looked at the heap of swords on the dewy grass, and Jaime nodded in rapt attention.  
  
“My son is the prince who was promised.  He will be the greatest king Westeros has ever known.  He alone will bring peace to our warring kingdoms.  He will deliver the world from darkness.  He will come on a comet that paints the sky with blood.  His is the song of ice and fire.  This I read, and this I know.  But the dragon must have three heads, and mine has only two.  Three heads.  _Three._ ”  
  
At that, Rhaegar began to weep, and Arthur knew not what to do.  In the dim, their King to be hunched over his harp and drenched it with his tears.  His three companions could do nothing but sit beside him, their own hearts beating sympathy loud as bells in their chests.  
  
When he looked up at them again, his cheeks were damp and so they shone in the starlight, bright as his silver hair.  
  
“Three heads has the dragon.  And that’s why I need her.  That’s why I need Lyanna Stark.”  
  
\--  
  
It was near dusk when Lyanna Stark waddled out from the tower on to the roof, to eye the oncoming storm.  “My brother,” she guessed, hands clasped over her swollen belly, and Arthur kept his eyes off her legs, which were sticky with dark blood.  
  
“My lady,” he nodded at her, his gaze never leaving the horizon.  “Should you be up and about?  The maesters—“  
  
“Damn the maesters to their seven hells, and damn you too if you try to stop me.  In the North I might be giving birth under a weirwood tree, with ought but the Old Gods’ red eyes to watch over me.  That’s how the wildlings do it.  Old Nan told me that.  Aye, and my brother too.”  
“Eddard Stark told you that?”  
  
“No not him.  My older brother.  Brandon.  He’s dead now, and my father, too.  And Rhaegar, damn Robert and his hammer.  He could never let me make my own choices, could he?  None of them could.”  
  
 _Look where your choices have landed you,_  Arthur wished to say,  _look where they’ve landed me, and Rhaegar, and Elia, and poor little Rhaenys and Aegon.  Look where Jon Connington is, across the narrow sea, drinking himself to death with a lot of sellswords, bloody murderers and rapists, all of them.  Are any of us better for your choices?_  But instead he said nothing.  What was done was done.  To cast his scorn on this woman now would be beneath him.  
  
“You think I’m a fool, don’t you.  That I should have just married Robert, his bastards be damned, and lived the life he wanted for me.  My brother wouldn’t be dead then, nor my father, nor Rhaegar, I suppose.”  
  
“Aerys killed your brother and father, and Robert Baratheon killed Rhaegar Targaryen.  And you may marry him yet.”  
  
Lyanna laughed at that.  “I’ll die first.”  Arthur started as she brushed her swollen hands against his own, still folded around Dawn’s heavy hilt.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, drawing her fingers away, “I’m sorry that it had to be like this, but it was the only way.  The dragon must have three heads, and the song of ice and fire is yet to be sung.”  
  
\--  
  
They lost Jon Connington first.  Desperate and eager to prove himself as the King’s Hand, worthy and strong, he lost the Battle of the Bells, lost Robert Baratheon, and every charm or favor the Targaryens had ever cast upon him, all in one fell swoop.  
Privately, Arthur knew that Jon had acted with nobility and just cause.  There was no honor in burning a town, no matter how many enemies hid beneath its walls.  Had Arthur had the command, he would have acted more swiftly, perhaps, or sent out vanguards to head off Baratheon and Stark’s troops, but he was proud of his friend for not listening to the Mad King’s orders.  
  
But a King, even a mad King, was not one happy to be disobeyed, and Jon was banished, making their number one good man shorter.  In the Red Keep they said he trusted no one but his pyromancers, those frightening slaves to wildfire.  Just so, Arthur was glad to be at the Tower of Joy with Rhaegar.  In his maddening fits, Aerys was like to see Rhaegar as enemy more than son.  Aerys mistrusted anyone more popular than he, and certainly Rhaegar qualified.  
  
It was with dread that he greeted Knight Commander Gerold Hightower after the Battle of the Bells, and with dread he said farewell to Prince Rhaegar.  Hands clasped solemnly, Arthur looked his prince in the eyes, but as he saw the Stranger’s shadow standing tall behind Rhaegar, he knew it would be the very last time.  
  
\--  
  
“No!” Lyanna Stark shouted at the maesters, “No I shan’t go back into the darkness.”  
  
“But my lady your childbirth pains—“  
  
“Exactly.  They’re  _my_  pains and I can have them wherever I want.  I’m not leaving this balcony.  I want to see them approaching.  You can bring your beds and your noxious potions up here but I won’t be leaving.”  
  
“Ser Arthur, please, talk some sense into her.”  
  
Arthur turned from the horizon.  What began the day as black dots were now full-fledged men, who would be at the tower gates within the hour.  Still, he could see the blood on Lyanna’s white shift.  Perhaps it would be better for her to go indoors.  
  
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare command me. Rhaegar told you to protect me from anyone who might harm me, and if these men bring me inside that will harm me!”  
  
“My lady, what will harm you is staying out here.”  
  
“My son will not be born in the dark to die by your hands.  I won’t let you kill him.  I won’t let you take him from me!  He is the prince who was promised and he will be born in the light!”  
  
A sigh tumbled from Arthur’s lips as he surveyed the scene behind him.  “Bring whatever you need for her birthing here,” he said, stoic as the stone that surrounded them.  “She stays.  And bring Ser Gerold and Ser Oswell.  We will have need of them within the hour.  Enemies are fast approaching.”  
  
“Thank you, Ser Arthur—“  
  
“I do not do it for you, my lady.  It’s for Rhaegar that I have been protecting you this past year, and it is on his behalf that I will protect your son, whether he be the prince who was promised, or nothing more than another highborn bastard, doomed to a life of ridicule and dishonor.  Rhaegar gave me my orders, and I will obey them until the last.  It’s what he would have wanted.”  
  
\--  
  
When their stories were written and their final songs sung, Arthur hoped the battle of the Trident would forever be a tragedy.  On that day, the day that Rhaegar’s chest wept blood as he drowned, lungs crushed in those shallow waters, Westeros lost it’s last hope for a noble king.  
  
What was there left but Kings Landing to be sacked, its women raped, its stores plundered?  What was there left but Elia’s death, and that of Rhaegar’s children?  What would become of his young brother Viserys?  Would his blood be spilled upon the gargoyles of Dragonstone?  And Rhaella?  Would she too have to die?  
  
Had he been a less honorable man, a less noble one, perhaps Arthur would have looked to the cause, languishing many moons pregnant in his care, and exacted his revenge, but what would that have wrought?  What more harm could Lyanna Stark cause that she had not already?  
  
No, he could not blame her, much as he wished to, there was no justice in that.  Nor could he blame his own prince, rashly though he acted.  It was not Prince Rhaegar who burned Rickard Stark in his armor, or choked Brandon Stark without trial or justice.  It was not Lyanna Stark who dealt that final blow to Rhaegar upon the trident, sending rubies scattering into the shallows, putting an end to the finest prince Westeros had ever known.  
  
When the Stranger walked among them, and the gods judged their souls, a man was no more than his own actions, than his words, than his deeds.  Robert Baratheon and Aerys Targaryen would fight their own demons.  There was nothing punishing Lyanna Stark would accomplish that the gods would not sort without his mortal help.  
  
And who was Arthur Dayne to be judge of any but his own sins?  Leave judgment to the gods.  His place was to mourn, and mourn he did, through the night, until the sun burnt red on the horizon.  
  
 _Are you the bleeding star?_  Arthur wished to scream,  _are you Rhaegar’s prince who was promised?  Were you worth dying for?_  
  
But there was nothing to answer him but the dawn.  
  
\--  
  
Eddard Stark barely glanced at his sister as he strode upon the parapet.  Together, Arthur Dayne stood strong with his brothers.  They were only three, and their challengers six, but they were knights of the Kingsguard; the finest knights the realm had ever known.  
  
 _“I looked for you on the Trident,” Ned said to them._  
  
“We were not there,” Ser Gerold answered.  
  
“Woe to the Usurper if we had been,” said Ser Oswell.  
  
“When King’s Landng fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were.”  
  
“Far away,” Ser Gerold said, “or Aerys would yet sit the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in seven hells.”  
  
“I came down on Storm’s End to lift the siege,” Ned told them, and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them.”  
  
“Our knees do not bend easily,” said Ser Arthur Dayne.  
  
“Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him.”  
  
“Ser Willem is a good man and true,” said Ser Oswell.  
  
“But not of the Kingsguard,” Ser Gerold pointed out. “The Kingsguard does not flee.”  
  
“Then or now,” said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.  
  
“We swore a vow,” explained old Ser Gerold.  
  
Ned’s wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.  
  
“And now it begins,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.  
  
“No,” Ned said with sadness in his voice. “Now it ends.”

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: the bit in italics at the end, starting with 'I looked for you at the trident,' and going through to the end of the piece is an excerpt from George R. R. Martin's _A Game of Thrones_. All characters and settings belong to him and not me. But any emotional pain this fic caused you is mine to relish (:


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